Top Tweets for #iStandWithNurses

Dear 🇬🇧, We junior doctors are set to launch the longest period of industrial action in NHS history as we go on strike for 5 consecutive days from 13 July. Striking is always a last resort but it's an absolute necessity right now. Here's why. Your NHS is collapsing because we don't have enough funds, staff, beds, and social care. We are in this position because we have a government that for the last 13 years intentionally engineered this crisis to push more people into private healthcare — never to improve your care, we all know that hasn't happened — but to profit from the breakup and privatisation of the NHS. 13 years ago, this government inherited the #1 ranked healthcare system in the world and look what damage they've done. You are now suffering on the longest waiting lists in NHS history at 7.4m people long. You are waiting longer than ever before to see a GP, to be seen in A&E, to get cancer care, or to get a hip replacement. All of these delays means that you and your family are not safe RIGHT NOW, even when not a single NHS worker is on strike. To illustrate just how bad the situation has become, an estimated 500 patients are dying every single week from preventable delays accessing NHS emergency care — that's now 12,500 dead patients so far in 2023 alone — and a huge contributor to those deaths is a lack of staff in every single part of the system. People are dying at home, on the backs of delayed ambulances, or in overcrowded A&E departments here in the 6th wealthiest country in the world. This is nothing short of criminal grade negligence from those in power for the last 13 years and you and your family, and all of my NHS colleagues, are paying the price. This is what it comes down to: This government does not give a damn about NHS patients or staff, and is content to allow your family and our colleagues to suffer while they bleed the NHS dry to support a growing private healthcare system for the wealthy, while working people suffer in a crumbling NHS. Rapid care for the rich. Delayed and denied care for the rest of us. So I ask you this: If our colleagues are leaving the profession in record numbers because our pay has been cut by nearly 32% in the last 15 years, if we're leaving in record numbers because it's become far too difficult to work in the NHS that is collapsing around us, if we're leaving in record numbers because far too many of our colleagues are killing themselves because it's too painful to watch our patients suffer from a government that has completely abandoned us all, then what should we do? In this situation, do we stay silent and watch people die? Do we stay silent as this government destroys your access to high quality healthcare? Do we stay silent as our colleagues take their own lives? Do we stay silent as they destroy our professions and force us all to leave the country? We NHS staff have a moral obligation to protect our patients, protect our professions, protect our colleagues, protect our communities, protect our NHS, and fight back in any way possible. If that means going on strike to highlight these problems and fight for the future of the NHS, then so be it. Indeed it's the most patriotic thing we can do. #SOSNHS